The process of tracking time is unique to every employee or position, so there’s no one-size-fits-all sheet that will do the job. Still, certain principles and features will generally play into most timesheet models. For instance, before you start formatting cells and entering formulas, you need to decide why you’re tracking time, who’s going to use that information, and how:

  • Decide on a time period. (Management will probably make this decision for you.) Most of us track hours weekly, biweekly, or monthly.
  • Tracking just time isn’t always enough. Many companies bill your hours back to clients. Therefore, you must allocate your time to specific projects.

This article will show you how to create a weekly timesheet you can easily adjust to track biweekly and monthly times and projects. As is, this sheet doesn’t document breaks or allow for flexibility in scheduling. However, the basic structure and formulas are present, so you can easily customize the sheet to fit your needs.

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Note: This article and sample timesheet are available as a free download.

1: Determine your needs

When preparing a template other people will use, you need to consider several options:

  • How to solicit and validate input from users to eliminate typos and other invalid data.
  • How users will access the template — from an Excel workbook on their local systems or via a browser and a Web-based application.
  • How to protect the template sheet so users can’t alter formulas and automated features.
  • How to secure confidential data.

If you’re creating a timesheet for yourself, your job is somewhat less complicated.

2: Enter labels

The first step to actually building the timesheet is to enter the appropriate labels. That includes the following headings:

  • All applicable employee information, such as name, social security number, employee identification number, department, and manager. Include only data that’s truly required.
  • A time period. This could be the first day of the work week, the start and end date of a bimonthly time period, or even the first day of a fiscal month.
  • Generating dates is necessary. Including the names of the workdays might seem unnecessary, but your users will probably appreciate your attention to helpful details.
  • Time in and out, breaks, sick, vacation, overtime, and so on.
  • Subtotals and grand totals, as required.
  • Employee and approving manager signature lines, if required.

Figure A

Figure A

Enter the appropriate labels to identify your timesheet data.

3: Automate the dates

You can require users to enter the dates manually, but that leads to mistakes, even with the best trained users. If you know the exact time period, the simplest solution is to automate the required dates as follows:

  1. Have users enter the first date of the time period in cell B2.
  2. In the first cell in the Date column, A7, refer to the input date using the formula
=IF(B2<>"",B2,"")

Figure B

Figure B

Let the sheet generate dates based on the first date of each time period.

If the time period cell (B2) is blank, this formula returns a zero-length string. If there’s a value, the formula returns it. The formula will return a date serial value until we format it (which we’ll do later).

  1. In cell A8, enter the formula
 =IF(A7<>"",A7+1,"")

Figure C

Figure C:

This formula adds 1 to the value (date) in cell A7.
  1. Copy the formula in cell A8 as needed. For instance, if you’re tracking time by the week, copy the formula in cell A8 to cells A9:A13 for a total of seven rows (A7:A13). For a biweekly timesheet, you’d copy the formula to cell A20, and so on.

The next step is to enter a formula in column B that returns the name of the weekday for the dates in column A. To do so, enter the simple formula =A8 in cell B7 and copy it to cells B8:B13. (Later, we’ll format B7:B13 to display the day of the week by name rather than the actual dates shown in column A.) If there’s no date in cell B7, the sheet will appear empty.

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4: Format Date and Day of Week columns

Right now, the General format displays serial values in the Date and Day of Week columns. First, let’s format the dates in column A, as follows:

  1. Select A7:A13.
  2. Right-click the selection and choose Format Cells from the context menu.
  3. On the Numbers tab, select Date from the Category list, choose the appropriate format, such as d/m/yy, from the Type list, and click OK.

Next, format the dates in column B, as follows:

  1. Select B7:B13.
  2. Right-click the selection and choose Format Cells.
  3. On the Number tab, choose Custom from the Category list.
  4. Enter dddd in the Type field, as shown in Figure D, and click OK.

Figure D

The dddd format displays a date value as its day of the week.

Figure E

Figure E

The sheet generates dates for each time period if you provide a beginning date (cell B7).

5: Enter a formula that calculates the first eight hours of each day

Figure F

=IF(((D7-C7)+(F7-E7))*24>8,8,((D7-C7)+(F7-E7))*24)

If the number of hours worked in one day is greater than eight, the formula returns 8. If the number or work hours is equal to or less than 8, the formula returns that amount. For now, the formula returns 0 because there are no time values to evaluate.

Figure F

This formula returns the first eight hours of each work day.

6: Enter a formula that calculates overtime for each day

Figure G

=IF(((D7-C7)+(F7-E7))*24>8,((D7-C7)+(F7-E7))*24-8,0)

Figure G

When the number of work hours is greater than 8, this formula returns the overage.

7: Format In and Out columns

Figure H

Figure H

When calculating time, work with valid time values to avoid troublesome errors.

Now, you might think that a different set of formulas could handle general numbers. What would happen if you delete the *24 components in both formulas? Those formulas work up to a point, but neither handles all timelines. For instance, neither formula can handle an In value that’s greater than its companion Out value (such as row 10 in Figure H).

To format the In and Out values appropriately, do the following:

  1. Select C7:F13.
  2. Right-click the selection and choose Format Cells.
  3. On the Number tab, choose Time from the Category list.
  4. Select the 00:00 format and click OK.

8: Provide In and Out default values

Figure I

Figure I

Enter default time values to avoid user input errors.

The default values shown here are entered using a 24-hour clock. 13:00 is 1:00 PM (check the Formula bar) and 17:00 is 5:00 PM. You can enter 1:00 and 5:00, but you must train your users to also enter the PM. Excel will assume that 1:00 is 1:00 AM and 5:00 is 5:00 AM if you don’t specify that it’s PM. Either way, entering time isn’t intuitive for most users, so providing the default values is helpful.

In this example sheet, Saturday and Sunday aren’t regular workdays, so it stores 0 values. Of course, you can customize the days normally worked to suit each employee.

9: Enter defaults for sick and vacation time

Figure J

  1. Select I7:J13.
  2. Right-click the selection and choose Format Cells.
  3. On the Number tab, choose Number from the Category list and click OK.

By default, the Number format assumes two decimal places, but you might want to set that to 0. The two decimal places will allow employees to specify partial hours.

Figure J

Enter default values for sick and vacation time.

10: Enter a formula that calculates daily totals

Figure K

=SUM(G7:J7)

Figure K

This simple SUM() function totals daily hours.

11: Enter formulas that calculate weekly totals

Figure L

=SUM(G7:G13)

Figure L

SUM() functions total weekly hours.

12: Validating sums

Figure M

=IF(SUM(G14:J14)=SUM(K7:K13),SUM(G14:J14),"Error!")

Figure M

Verify subtotals using this IF() function.

13: Fine-tune the formatting

Figure N

Figure N

Add borders to separate sections.

14: Ensure valid input values

Users will have to change some data, but the sheet is specific in what types of values it needs. To protect the sheet’s purpose, you can restrict users to specific types of data. For instance, cell B2 must be a valid date for the date- and day-generating formulas in columns A and B to work. Enable data validation for this cell as follows:

  1. Select cell B2.
  2. From the Data menu, choose Validation.
  3. On the Settings tab, choose Date from the Allow drop-down list.
  4. Choose Greater Than from the Data list.
  5. Enter 1/1/1900 in the Start Date field, as shown in Figure O, and click OK.

Figure O

Make sure users enter only valid values.

When validating this particular date, you can narrow things down a bit. However, if you just want to ensure that the input value is a valid date, the above works fine.

You can also ensure that the In and Out entries are valid time values, as follows:

  1. Select C7:F13.
  2. Choose Validation from the Data menu.
  3. On the Settings tab, and choose Time from the Allow list.
  4. In the Start Time field, enter 0:00. In the End Time field, enter 23:59 and click OK.

As with the date value, you can narrow down the acceptable times. You can even limit the columns individually. However, the “between 0:00 and 23:59” settings will reject anything but a valid time entry.

To protect the Sick and Vacation columns, set up validation as follows:

  1. Select I7:J13.
  2. Choose Validation from the Data menu.
  3. On the Settings tab, choose Any Value from the Allow list.
  4. Choose Decimal from the Allow list.
  5. Enter 0 and 8 as the Minimum and Maximum values and click OK.

Choosing Decimal in step 4 will allow users to enter partial hours. Choose Whole Number from the Allow list to restrict users to only hours. In addition, you can enter clues to the type of data the user must enter, as well as error messages. Applying validation rules adds the first layer of protection.

15: Protect formulas

Once the sheet is finished, add a second layer of protection by specifying what cells users can alter before you distribute it. You can do so as follows:

  1. Select a noncontiguous range consisting of the following ranges: B1:B4, C7:F13, I7:J13. (Hold down the [Ctrl] key while highlighting each range.)
  2. Choose Cells from the Format menu and click the Protection tab.
  3. Deslect the Locked option and click OK.
  4. Choose Protection from the Tools menu.
  5. Choose Protect Sheet.
  6. Enter a password.
  7. Uncheck the Select Locked Cells option and click OK.
  8. Reenter the password to verify it and click OK.
  9. Delete any test values, such as the date in B2.
  10. Save the workbook.

Now users can select only the cells they might need to update. Train your users to open the template and save a new file to create a new timesheet. That way, they can open the template with all the defaults to start each new time period.

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